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How can media strengthen Indo-Pak relations?
Highlights
How can Media Strengthen Indo-Pak Relations? Anti-America and not Anti-India Stories. Abid who was moderating the discussion pointed out that such misconceptions should be erased especially between India and Pakistan.
Did you know that its anti-America and not anti-India stories that provide great TRPs in TV channels in Pakistan and that the Taliban too kills Pakistani soldiers at the Line of Control? Such interesting tidbits among a host of other facts were pointed out by Asma Sherazi, senior anchor and editor of Pakistan based Dawn TV. She participated in a panel discussion on the ‘Role of Media in Regional Cooperation’ organised by South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies held at Hotel Avasa, Madhapur on Wednesday.
The panel has eminent personalities like, Kingshuk Nag, editor, Times of India and Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, editor, The Siyasat Daily, who represented the Indian media contingent. The discussion was moderated by Abid Suleri from Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Pakistan and Arvind Susarla from the University of Hyderabad. The agenda of the debate was to clear the misconceptions of the situation prevalent in both countries and to plot an agenda for media in regional cooperation.
Zaheeruddin pointed out that both Indian and Pakistani television media were too nationalistic to garner TRPs and both of them portray what its respective government wants. “But when I visited Pakistan, people showered us with love and affection and traders offered huge discounts because we hailed from India.”
Asma agreed, saying, “In Pakistan, our headlines are filled with Bollywood stories. I agree that the law and order situation in Pakistan is bad. But people are more anti-America than India. But the Indian media is very irresponsible. For your upcoming 2014 elections, most of the leaders are taking an anti-Pakistan stand and the Indian media is reporting it. We do not do that in Pakistan. In-fact, most of us are against Hafiz Saeed. What Indian media is doing is irresponsible.”
Kingshuk countered, “In India, Pakistanis are welcomed with an open heart and vice-versa. There is a growing need for decreasing the resentment against Pakistan. In-fact China is a bigger threat for us. If more and more people come to know about their counterparts, people would realise that what their establishments say is wrong.”
Zaheeruddin added, “Why are we spending over Rs 400 crore on defence? We should encourage people- to-people interactions. When I went to Pakistan, since I was Muslim, people enquired if I was able to pray freely in India? We need to fight such misconceptions and the media should help in decreasing it.”
Azma raised that the most critical issue in Pakistan is drone attacks by Americans and that international media from US and UK are biased and do not report it. “The Americans are only concerned about the safe retrieval of their troops from Pakistan. We understand that we need to talk to India about this. Pakistan’s internal problems with Taliban can only be solved if India assists us. As long as there are troops on LOC we cannot solve issues at our eastern border with Afghanistan. As India is our big brother, they should help us.”
Contrary to the perception in the world, Amza said that Pakistani Muslims were more secular. She highlighted that the suicide attack on a church in Peshawar last month which killed 79 people was strongly condemned by Muslims in Pakistan.
Abid who was moderating the discussion pointed out that such misconceptions should be erased especially between India and Pakistan.
He said that both the countries could discuss about common issues like girl’s education and development on a common platform so that it could eliminate the misconceptions and help in building good relations.
Azma responded that Pakistani anchors could conduct talk shows in India and vice-versa and use social media as a tool to build good relations.
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